"Who's that?"
They both froze beneath the blanket, a tangle of limbs and shame, their breathing the only sound in the suddenly hostile room. It came out as a ragged whisper, but it echoed like a scream in Camilla's mind.
A figure stood framed in the doorway, backlit by the torchlight from the hall.
It was Isabelle.
Her face wasn't shocked. It wasn't even angry. It was bright—illuminated by a cold, brilliant satisfaction. For days, she had been meticulously searching for a single crack in the Crown Princess's armor. And now, she hadn't just found a crack. She had walked in on the entire fortress collapsing in on itself.
The sight was a physical blow to Camilla's stomach. Her breath hitched, trapped somewhere between her lungs and her throat. Every coherent thought shattered.
No. No.No...Not this...
"Matrona." The title fell from Camilla's lips, an automatic, desperate formality. She lunged for the other blanket at the side of the bed, her movements clumsy with panic. The fabric tangled as she tried to wrap it around herself, a flimsy shield against Isabelle's knowing eyes.
"Matrona, don't say a word." Tiberius's voice was a low, furious command as he fought his way out of the sheets, his focus on retrieving his clothing.
His authority meant nothing here. The power had already shifted.
Camilla's legs felt like water. She stood anyway, the blanket held tightly under her chin.
Her heart wasn't beating—it was thrashing against her ribs, a wild animal trying to escape a cage. She took a step toward Isabelle, then another, driven by a primal instinct to somehow stop this, to rewind the last sixty seconds.
"Matrona, please do not—" she said again, her voice trembling. Her hand lifted to connect, to beg for a shred of mercy she already knew wasn't there.
Isabelle didn't flinch. Her smile widened, a beautiful, cruel curve. "Do not dare lay a finger on me," she said softly, each word perfectly enunciated, a needle dipped in honey.
The reality of it crashed over Camilla in an icy wave.
It's over.
Her position, her engagement, her life—all of it, gone. The scandal wouldn't just disgrace her; in this court, it could be a death sentence.
Tenebrarum would not merely be angry. He would be vengeful. And the king… her mind shied away from the image of the king's wrath.
"You two can continue," Isabelle offered, her tone light, almost conversational. "My apologies for the intrusion." Her gaze swept the room—the rumpled black sheets, Tiberius half-dressed, Camilla standing barefoot and exposed.
Isabelle was memorizing it. Cataloguing the evidence. "Next time," she added, the sweetness vanishing, replaced by a quiet, final steel, "lock the door if you wish to partake in such acts."
She didn't slam it. She closed the door with a soft sound.
Click...
The sound was the lock turning on Camilla's fate.
The silence was absolute, a heavy, suffocating shroud that pressed down on them. Then the trembling began—a violent, uncontrollable shudder that started deep in Camilla's core and radiated outwards until her knees gave way. She sank onto the edge of the bed, the blanket slipping from her numb fingers, pooling at her feet like a discarded shield.
"My life is destroyed."
A single tear tracked a hot path down her cheek, followed by another. Then she bent forward, curling in on herself as silent, heaving sobs wracked her body. Eleven years of discipline, of careful maneuvering, of surviving—gone. Obliterated in a moment of reckless, stolen passion.
"I'll fix this," Tiberius said, his voice low, urgent, as he wrestled his shirt over his head. "I promise—"
"You promise what?" Her head snapped up, her eyes wide and glistening with fury and despair. "You cannot fix this! My life is destroyed. Do you understand that? It is over."
"I'm so sorry—"
"Sorry?" The word tore from her, raw and broken. "You should have locked the door! Or something! Anything!" She gestured wildly at the door, the final, fatal breach.
"Do you know how long I have been here? Eleven years. Eleven good years of surviving, of building something—gone! I will be dead soon. Dead! And you…" Her voice cracked, crumbling into a whisper of pure anguish. "You should have just locked the door."
She braced for his anger, for a shout, for the slap of blame. She did not expect the heavy warmth of his body pressing close, nor the circle of his arms wrapping around her—a cage that felt, terrifyingly, like a refuge.
"I will make sure you are not hurt," he murmured, the words vibrating through his chest and into her own. "I promise."
He pulled her face into the hollow of his shoulder.
A raw, guttural sob broke from her, and then she was crying in earnest—ugly, shuddering cries that contorted her whole body. Tears flooded hot and fast, mixing with the thick, helpless mucus that ran from her nose. She felt it, warm and slick, soaking into the fine linen of his shirt.
A disgusting, intimate stain she was too broken to hide.
She clutched at him, her fingers twisting in the damp fabric, waiting for him to recoil. To shove her away in disgust at the mess she was making of him.
He didn't.
He only held her tighter, his arms a solid, unyielding band around her trembling frame. He rested his chin on the crown of her head and took the weight of her collapse as if she meant the world—as if her ruin was something he could simply absorb into himself.
When her sobs finally subsided into ragged, broken breaths, he gently tilted her chin up. Her face was a mess—eyes swollen nearly shut, the vibrant blue of her irises drowned in a sea of red veins. Tear tracks cut through the flush of her cheeks, and strands of damp hair clung to her skin.
"I do not regret this," he said, his voice low but unwavering. "Not for a single moment." He brushed a trembling thumb over her wet cheek. "I love you, Camilla. I always will."
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To be continued...